Can You Hold Corporate Parties on a Budget in a Recession?

With economic pressure forcing London’s Corporate Companies to shift their thinking regarding budgets and hosting events and parties, Personal Assistants and event planners everywhere are looking for new solutions that they wouldn’t have necessarily considered just twelve months ago. There is a clear trend growing away from swanky to quirky, and from pricey to value added venues for all kinds of events.

London’s bar industry is taking note and some are going to great lengths to prepare for this changing of the guard. Adventure Bar in Covent Garden is one such venue. They have taken the bold step of producing a brand new website dedicated purely to the corporate party organiser, and according to owner Tobias Jackson, this forward thinking will reap rewards. Confirming this, Tobias says “We have always had corporate parties but for the first time, we have created a brand new corporate product. It is really exciting to give event organisers the opportunity to build an event from scratch that quite literally they couldn’t get elsewhere.”

It’s a bold step when everyone else is cutting back, but is spending money on a new website really the way to go at this time? “Companies still have clients to entertain.” Tobias continues, “What we are doing is giving them the option of having a great location, but instead of blowing a budget on a beautiful but ultimately boring marble roomed venue with no atmosphere, they can spend their money on entertainment and atmosphere, as well as exciting drinks and food.” Adventure Bar will for the first time also allow guests to make and shake their own cocktails under expert tuition. “This is a very exciting option and something that we have decided to provide for free. They can make any one of our over 100 cocktails with the help of our world class bartenders, and that’s something you can’t put a price on.” says Tobias.

Whether Adventure Bar’s gamble will pay off, remains to be seen. However, with the Olympics in London this year, and with Christmas party planning already just round the corner, quirky venues really could be the big winners in the corporate event industry in 2012.